I am very comfortable under NDC administration – Kwesi Pratt

The Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt has declared that he is very comfortable under the current National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.

The seasoned journalist observed that as a media person, the government, unlike the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has created a very conducive atmosphere for him to operate without being victimized.

Speaking on Alhaji and Alhaji on Radio Gold Saturday, Kwesi Pratt stated that, “To be quite honest with you as a practicing journalist, I am very comfortable under this administration.”

He explained that, “In the years before 2000, those of us who had taken a very critical stand against government were being stifled. It was impossible for us to have adverts. We were constantly being harassed and so on.”

“Many of us had believed that after the victory of the New Patriotic Party in 2000, the situation would ease considerably for journalists and that it would have been possible for journalists to express themselves without having to suffer sanctions. We were largely disappointed,” the Insight Editor observed.

He recounted that, “In the first few months of the Kufuor administration, we also started getting adverts and so on and we were being treated like a normal media. By the end of the first few months because we had decided to be critical, all adverts were cancelled for our newspaper, for our radio stations and so on.”

“In addition to that,” Kwesi Pratt added, “we were systematically harassed to the point that all kinds of schemes were cooked up in order to destroy our reputation and so on.”

According to him, he has “lived under the Mills-Mahama administration for four years and I have still been very critical, at some point, of the administration and yet my newspaper has suffered no discrimination and I am not just talking about the insight.”

Under President Mills, he again recounted that, he (Mills) during his media encounters made very strenuous special efforts to get journalists who were critical of his administration, who disagreed with him, to speak.

“On press freedom, on the creation of an atmosphere which is conducive to free expression and so on I am very satisfied with what has happened within the last four years,” Kwesi Pratt stated.